The Way a Songbird Dies

The cage is beautiful, but it’s still a cage.

Photo by Craig Adderley: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-candles-inside-cages-1652303/

The market is silent tonight, but it was not always this way.

Once, gods and monsters walked these same dusty paths. Horned women in crimson robes bartered with hags who were no more than four heads high. Men with skin the color of sapphires spoke in languages lost to human ears, and goblins offered handmade curses in…